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Originally Posted by geckoGT
I understand what he is saying and you are right it is logical. But the point is that I have tried to put across is that the ANCAP does not assess the damage to the vehicle, it rates the injury causing forces applied to the occupants in the vehicle (2 adults in the front, a 3 year old and a 18 month old, both in approved restraints). Thus it assesses the car ability to absorb a known force.
No one buying a small car is going to say "I would like a small car, I only need a small car, but if I get hit by a 4wd it will do lots of damage so I better buy the 4WD". Just like those that are looking at large sedans don't opt for a Hummer because they might get hit by a truck. In crash protection, people want to know that they will be protected in an average crash with minimal chance of injury. Considering the average crash happens at less than 40 km/h and is normally front to rear type crashes, the ANCAP testing does very well in giving a decent indication of what is going to happen if you buy it and are involved in an accident.
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I think we have to agree to disagree haha, I certainly understand what your saying and I agree that the Ancap ratings are good measure of a vehicles ability to hit an immovable object.
My issue is with the more common car on car crashes, Im not carte blanche stating that a smaller car is worse off hitting a large car, I am saying that the crash rating themselves are flawed due to the vehicles differing masses. Remember E = 0.5mv2 so the vehicles mass is certainly an issue in determining the energy of a crash between two vehicles. This issue is not tested in an immovable object crash as the wall is exerting the exact opposite of the cars force in the crash. So an Ancap crash of a Fiesta has a lower kinetic energy than an Ancap crash of a Landcruiser, so I disagree that each crash test is a test which is equivalent.
Remember that a crash with an immovable object is the equivalent of a crash with a car with the same mass and speed from the opposite direction. So a Fiesta crash test is the equivalent of a Fiesta hitting another Fiesta head on, likewise a Landcruiser test is the equivalent of a Landcruiser hitting another Landcruiser head on - you can start to see its not a level playing field as a Fiesta is having a crash test with a lot lower kinetic energies involved. The Ancap tests basically penalise a car for its mass.
My way would to solve it would be testing cars up against a movable block. This block could represent the weight of the average car on the road travelling at the same speed. All of a sudden a Fiesta would have to work a lot harder to get a good rating and a Landcruiser would have to work a lot less, some people would say thats not fair but in reality real life crashes are seldom fair and would usually involve cars of different masses.